


Wobegon waters

by Dodo



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Cuddles, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Thor is a Good Bro (Marvel), Tony Stark Needs a Hug, trick cookies, tsum tsum
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-27
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-13 13:41:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29029608
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dodo/pseuds/Dodo
Summary: Steve is coping and its not great several avengers had noticed his stiff and formal approach to everything and they want him to let loos and be more mellow so Clint decides a prank war is needed, it works but not the way it was intended.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Comments: 5
Kudos: 5
Collections: POTS (18+) Stony Stocking 2020





	Wobegon waters

**Author's Note:**

  * In response to a prompt by [starksnack](https://archiveofourown.org/users/starksnack/pseuds/starksnack) in the [stony_stocking_2020](https://archiveofourown.org/collections/stony_stocking_2020) collection. 



> **Prompt:**
> 
> starksnack#3490
> 
> \- steve makes a joke about pulling out the arc reactor or gets tony’s head wet in a prank war and tony gets upset cause ptsd and they work through that

According to Clint and Falcon Steve was too stiff, he needed to spend more time bonding, with his barriers down. So naturally Clint offers a prank war to mellow the mood. Help Steve have fun, Steve is unsure of why he even agreed. It reminds him a bit of Bucky and that just hurts.

It's a raw spot and being formal and professional really did help him get over the realization and despair of bucky being alive, that behavior definitely put him in a bad spot team wise. He’s the leader and every one seems reluctant to talk to him. Bruce is wary for some reason and Tony doesn’t even chat with him much anymore. Though that was probably with the accords fiasco luckily nothing came of it. 

Bucky had chosen to be iced again and Steve ached for his best friend, so no he hadn’t been relaxed and easy to talk to. Maybe he'd been a bit too resistive of the new team dynamic where Tony and he were co leaders. He trusted Tony of course, with his life, he trusted the man to help Bucky even after he learned that Buck had killed his parents.

Natasha had offered that Steve seemed rather stiff and if he wanted to spar he knew where she was. The last thing Steve wanted to do was spar, Thor had just looked at him knowingly, no advice from him but Thor was always willing to listen, it made a good dynamic when Steve felt too many emotions at once. Talking to Thor really helped, and he never seemed to judge Steve either.

Tony was a can of worms, their relationship had taken a terrible beating, mostly from Steve’s lack of communication, and Tony’s ability to infer something from nothing. Also Steve really dropped the ball on the whole Bucky killed your parents, Tony had hidden himself in the lab shortly after viewing it with Steve.

He needed to be more like Steve before bucky and the accords came crashing down, and Steve wasn’t sure how he could do that. Before he found out that hydra had been living inside of shield, before he learned of the terrible things his brother had to endure at the hands of hydra? There was not going back but he could try to loosen up.

So a prank war, with Clint. Steve frowned; he could try the silly pranks he and Bucky would do on each other, swapping the sugar for salt, tying their shoes together the harmless stuff. Apparently those were small beans, Steve found out after his 3 in 1 wash was replaced with some sort of Strawberry explosion. It made his skin feel really smooth so he didn’t mind that. It also got Tony to stop mid retreat, to sniff Steve. So that counted for something, Tony of course scuttled away before Steve could say anything.

He looked to Bruce and the other man hunched over.  
“I need to talk to him,”  
“Yes. please.”  
“How he keeps retreating.”  
“I..I don’t know and I wasn’t there for him.”  
Bruce wrung his hands, true he and Thor arrived near the end of the accords fiasco, Thor seemed to settle right in and Bruce seemed to have some hang ups about it, he was nervous around Natasha, and his relationship with Tony was also not great. Better than Steve’s though So Steve had been hoping for some insight.

That's how he ended up at the door to Tony’s lab, it wasn’t locked and he was granted permission to enter. Tony had managed to recover Jarvis but the AI had been less communicative, Steve didn’t know the reasons but presumed that the mind stone had wreaked havoc on the verbal bits of the AI. Tony’s back was to him and he stalled, realizing when he’d run off to track down Bucky it had left Tony alone in the tower without his friends.

“Tony…”  
Steve stalled when his eyes landed on the holograms of an arm, was Tony? He walked over to Tony, careful not to crowd the other, as he looked over the project.  
“They made it so he’d have to come back due to the pain, the original is a disasterpiece.”  
“Tony, I came to talk.”  
Tony stiffened and Steve could almost hear the frantic heart beat, he sighed really should have worded it better.

“About us, I didn’t mean to leave you so abruptly.”  
“You had to,”  
“I should have included you, I didn’t realize half the team followed me.”  
Steve tugged on his hair frustrated Natasha of course because she had a vested interest in Bucky, Clint followed Natasha, and Sam followed Steve.  
“Tony please forgive me, I'm not going to go on anymore wild goose chases. You were right about that.”  
Tony had been right about the chase. It turned out Bucky ended up at the tower in the end seeking maintenance on his arm and then a desire to be frozen again, after he apologized to Tony about his parents death.

“I thought you were mad at me for freezing him.”  
Tony offered, in that small voice. The voice that made Steve hate Howard.  
“No, I was mad at hydra, mad at a lot of things but not you. How could I?”  
Tony offered a small shrug, still not looking at Steve.

“I was trying to decompress, and not be so broody.”  
Tony was looking at him now and Steve floundered for a moment,  
“I agreed to a prank war with Clint.”  
“Ah the strawberry shampoo!”  
Tony nodded, and set down his tools. Leaning back in his chair he looked almost happy.

“You suck at it.”  
“Yeah I really do, I thought about making chocolate chip cookies but the chips are raisins.”  
Tony actually laughed.  
“That is a perfect prank for Clint, and you know Bruce and Thor would eat them up regardless. Not so bad old man.”  
“How do you end it?”  
“You don’t, that's why you don’t enter into it, I am unwilling to enter another prank war. On your own.”  
Steve nodded but felt much better.  
-  
Well until he didn’t one of the pranks hit Tony instead, the old water bucket on top of the door. Tony was soaked, and looked to be having trouble breathing. Steve helped Tony off the floor worried that the bucket had concussed him, Tony fought back aggressively, while gasping and making some god awful wheezing noises.

Tony managed to land a hard hit on Steve’s jaw, Steve pulled back releasing Tony who crumpled to the ground still fighting and his eyes were unfocused and manic. Oh gods what had Steve done! He wanted to get a towel but at the same time he couldn’t leave Tony like this on the floor. Not where anyone could walk in.

“Tony, hey tony sorry for getting you wet, it's me Steve.”  
Steve slowly patted Tony's shoulder as the other seemed to calm down a bit, he could feel how the trembled under his hand. He was kicking himself that shield file had something about water boarding in it. Shit, Steve had triggered something obviously and he just continued to talk slowly and quietly till Tony stopped shaking so much.

“S’eve,”  
Tony’s hoarse voice as Steve lifted the other up in his arms to Tony’s rooms so he could dry the other off and grovel for his terrible prank.  
“Shh Tony I got you, we’re home.”

Steve was surprised but at the same time not when he opened the room and his vision let him know something was moving on Tony’s bed. The lights flickered on and it was just a smack of Tsums, or a group Steve wasn’t certain of the correct word but it looked like Tony had added more friends to his tsum collection. They were mostly cap tsums with a few iron tsums and a single orange tsum that seemed to wink in and out. It looked remarkably like JARVIS’ mainframe.

The tsums followed Steve around the room from the bed, it would have been amusing if not the circumstances to watch a bunch of tsums run from one side of the bed to the other. He took Tony into the bathroom to get him dried off. Fetching some clean clothes when Tony seemed a bit more aware of his surroundings.

Steve really liked caring for Tony and this would have been a big deal, if he hadn’t been the one to send Tony into some ptsd attack. He showed off the cloth and placed them on the counter, gathering up a fluffy towel and carefully helping Tony out of his soaked clothes and patted him down till he was mostly dry.

Keeping the towel wrapped around Tony’s shoulders as he helped the man into some boxers and sweatpants. Tony was shivering again but it was likely due from the cool room and his wet hair.  
“Tony?”  
“I guess I don’t need a shower…”  
Steve knelt down and his heart hurt, Tony was trying to hide the hurt behind humor. His voice was scratchy and Steve waffled on offering water unsure if it would make this worse.  
“Hey, may I hug you?”  
“Sure.”  
Steve wrapped his arms around Tony and just held him till the shaking lessened, Till Tony rested his head on Steve’s shoulder. Finally when Steve made to move Tony grabbed onto his arms, and he returned to holding Tony in the embrace.

“Thank you,”  
Tony whispered and Steve felt wetness on his chest, Tony was crying.  
“Tony..”  
Steve knew if he pushed it Tony would say it's his wet hair or something was stuck in his eye so he just rubbed the other’s back till the soft sobs died out. Steve lifted Tony up and took him to the bed where the tsums parted like the red sea.

Once Tony was on the bed the tsums just took over crowding in and over and Tony was blanketed with the soft aliens. They seemed to be humming and Tony was petting one affectionately.  
“I’m so sorry I won’t do any more pranks.”  
Tony shook his head carefully as a pre serum Steve tsum was perched on it.  
“Do the cookies, and then you can stop. We already have a Clint, the world doesn’t need another one.”

Steve nodded but still felt bad about it, it didn’t help that the Tsum tsums were watching and judging him with their beady eyes from the vantage point of being stacked on Tony, a jury of his peers. Steve feels like he was found wanting, in their cold eyes. 

“Steve come on, they want to pile up,”  
“What?”  
“In bed, I forgive you. Up.”  
Tony offered a small but genuine smile as he patted the bed beside him and the Tsums moved out of the way, still watching Steve though. Maybe the cold gaze had been more hopeful. He sat next to Tony and let the tsums cuddle up to him, Tony leaned on him.

Steve wrapped an arm around Tony and sighed, glad to be done with the prank war mostly.   
“It just takes time to get over the hardships Steve.”  
Steve rubbed Tony’s knuckles with his hand. That was the closest thing he’d get to talking about Tony’s little episode and he was fine with that.  
“Yeah, you’ll help me?”  
“Of course and I expect..”  
“Yes I’ll help you Tony, of course!”

He tucked Tony into his chest more mindful of the tsums, as they were doing that humming thing and it was really relaxing. Also he didn’t want to accidentally squish any, lest they decided to do something terrible to him in his sleep. Tony sagged into Steve willingly as his eyes closed, Steve held him while the tsum hummed. This was better, he was still scolding himself but at least Tony had forgiven him.  
-  
“ACK!”  
Clint made a loud gagging noise as he dramatically wretched over the sink. He looked at the cookie he’d swiped from the platter.  
“Who! STEVE!”  
“Ah Bruce requested them.”  
“No this is the worst prank! I’m going to get you for this.”

Thor swooped in and took a cookie off the plate and took a large bite out of it and after swallowing exclaimed how delicious they were and made eyes at the rest of the plate. Steve handed the whole plate over.  
“For you and Bruce,”  
Thor nodded and took the plate heading down to Bruce’s labs with a full grin. Clint looked confused, not sure if this was a prank or not. Tony slid up to Steve.  
“The apron suits you.”  
Steve blushed and bent down to kiss Tony and Clint made a gagging noise, and Steve found he didn’t care that the prank war was over.


End file.
